Investigations on high speed directly modulated microdisk lasers accounting for radial carrier hole burning

Abstract. High-speed modulation characteristics are investigated for microdisk lasers theoretically and experimentally. In rate equation analysis, the microdisk resonator is radially divided into two regions under uniform carrier density approximation in each region. The injection current profile, carrier spatial hole burning, and diffusion are accounted for in the evaluation of small-signal modulation curves and the simulation of large-signal responses. The numerical results indicate that a wide mode field pattern in radial direction has merit for high-speed modulation, which is expected for coupled modes in the microdisk lasers connected with an output waveguide. For a 15-μm-radius microdisk laser connected with a 2-μm-wide output waveguide, the measured small-signal response curves with a low-frequency roll-off are well in agreement with the simulated result at a 2-μm radial width for the mode intensity distribution. The resonant frequencies of 7.2, 5.9, and 3.9 GHz are obtained at the temperatures of 287, 298, and 312 K from the small-signal response curves, and clear eye diagrams at 12.5  Gb/s with an extinction ratio of 6.1 dB are observed for the microdisk laser at the biasing current of 38 mA and 287 K.